Bar Cookie

I was so excited when Enjoy Life came out with their new line of chocolate bars, I literally jumped for joy. I was already a huge fan of their chocolate chips, and now they’ve given me a whole new genre of chocolate to bake with. These chocolate chunk cookie bars are an old-fashioned picnic or school function favorite. So easy and yet sooooo good!

Up until I created this recipe, allergen-free, gluten-free brownies were a bit like the Holy Grail. I kept searching, but to no avail. I worked on my own recipe, but making brownies without dairy, soy, gluten, and, most of all, eggs is not easy! Granted, there were recipes out there that called themselves brownies, but they were really just mini cupcakes. A chewy, moist brownie with a nice crusty, glossy top remained elusive. Until now, that is. Yup, that’s right, after years of trying, I’ve finally baked it—an honest-to-goodness allergen-free, gluten-free, vegan tray of real brownies. Go ahead, I dare you, try eating just one.

Often called “dream bars,” these double-layered bar cookies have a crunchy graham cracker base and a chewy, caramelized top. My friend Ben Duke says, “The only problem with these cookies is that there aren’t more of them!”

There is a plum tree on Interstate Highway 35 in Austin, Texas. My uncle Jon keeps an eye on this poor little tree growing in the median. After its showy blooms fade he watches for the red plums. When they look ripe he pulls over with his hazards blinking and picks every last plum and brings them home to make jelly.

Brownie mixes are easy, I know, but what you gain in time you lose in flavor. This recipe comes together quickly and yields fudgy brownies with more chocolate taste than you’ll ever get from a mix.

This recipe’s dynamic is hard to explain, and I really like that. This is the charm of the blondie. The vanilla and chocolate have a subtle repartee, with neither really dominating nor giving way to the other. Initially, the vanilla seems to cede center stage to the chocolate, but if you pay close attention, you’ll notice how the vanilla rounds out the chocolate with a seductive mellowness, ultimately creating balance. Making them bite-size gives a great crunchy texture, but you can also bake them in a cake pan and serve them as squares. Either way, blondies are best served warm.

No apologies here. These are dense and decadent. You’ll want to use a strong dark chocolate—something that stands up to the richness of great butter, fresh eggs, and a lot of sugar.

You’ll be happy to eat veggies for dessert when you taste these cakelike brownies. Zucchini is the surprise ingredient.

The exquisite aroma of cinnamon, apples, and brown sugar baking will make it hard to wait for this treat to come out of the oven.

Gina: These tart-sweet bar cookies are a variation on traditional lemon bars, and, girl, they are a vacation in a pan! The tender cookie base holds a puckery lime filling that gets a little extra kick from grated lime zest. You can use fresh limes or that bottled Key-lime juice you brought back from your last trip to the Gulf Coast. These bars need nothing more than a dusting of confectioners’ sugar, and they make an ideal dessert for barbecues, picnics, and slumber parties.

When researching this book, I talked about Jewish food with Pierre Dreyfus, a greatgrandson of Captain Alfred Dreyfus, the Jewish officer on the French General Staff who was falsely accused of being a German spy. The one recipe that Pierre remembered from his childhood was for butter, or butterkuchen, simple shortbread butter cookies sprinkled with cinnamon and sugar. A century ago, butterkuchen, similar to sablés in Brittany, were made by using equal weights of eggs in their shells, butter, sugar, and flour. Sometimes cooks would add a little kirsch or vanilla sugar. Some used a glass to cut round pieces from the cookie dough; others pressed the dough into pans and cut it into tiny squares or rectangles after baking. One elderly lady I interviewed told me how her grandmother would make butter in the summer from the fresh, unpasteurized cream of their cows and store it in a stone jar on a ledge outside their house all winter long. Then, when she wanted to use the butter for butter, it was right there. One day when I was visiting Sandrine Weil (see page 181), she and her daughters showed me how to make a tender butter. This is her take on the butterkuchen, made with rich French butter, which has a low water and high fat content, and is cut after baking into the traditional 1-inch squares.

These brownies turn out moist and fudgy. They bake in the convection oven at 25 degrees lower and for 10 minutes less baking time.

I'm surprised and delighted by the number of sweets and desserts that I have been able to come up with sans flour and dairy. With this one I had help. Our good friend Dr. Nersessian—a very good cook—came up with the first version of this to give me a dessert without the bad things. I have fiddled with it a bit. It has been a great success with all who have tasted it. A chocolate version follows.

Without exception, this was the most sought-after recipe at my restaurant and bakery. You would never believe these incredibly fudgy brownies are made with beans but no flour. The beans provide great body and fiber without a "beany" taste. Keep the brownies in the refrigerator. They will slice much better if refrigerated for several hours or overnight. Find natural coffee substitute at natural food stores.

After sampling hundreds of brownies in the Gourmet magazine test kitchens, along with baking countless more at home (my first was from the cult classic Betty Crocker's Cook Book for Boys and Girls), I feel qualified to declare my pride in this brownie. It's old-fashioned in its use of unsweetened chocolate, yet the addition of cocoa takes it to the deeper, darker chocolate place we crave these days. Not everyone loves nuts in their brownie, but without them, brownies seem more like dense squares of chocolate cake. When you do the done test, the toothpick comes out clean—no dilemmas over the moistness of the crumbs clinging to the pick—yet when you cut the brownies into pieces, you'll slice through the requisite thin crust to reveal super-moist and fudgy goodness. Editors' Note: Kemp Minifie reimagined the foil tray frozen dinner for Gourmet Live. Her updated menu includes: meatloaf made from grass-fed beef, scalloped potatoes, lemony green veggies, and your new favorite brownies for dessert.

This old-fashioned classic has many renditions but we love this one best; feel free to substitute milk, white, butterscotch, or bittersweet chocolate chips for the semi-sweet and almonds, walnuts, or peanuts for the pecans.

People always ask what makes these brownies so good. The answer is simple: crunchy, crispy rice cereal (thank you, Claude)! These brownies freeze well, staying fresh tightly wrapped in the freezer for up to 1 month, and thaw quickly for an almost-instant homemade dessert. Keep a stash handy.

This pretty bar cookie is another play on a brownie. Dark brown sugar and a hint of cinnamon are perfect partners for the robust flavor of the chocolate. The top is generously sprinkled with macadamia nuts and has a chocolate webbed finish that's guaranteed to catch your eye.

The recipe for red velvet cake has been around since the 1920s, when the cake was the signature dessert at the Waldorf-Astoria Hotel in New York City. The cake captured my heart-and it plays hard to get. It took me forever to come up with a magical adaptation that would capture the richness of its namesake. These bars get their health benefits, velvety texture, and deep red color from a paste made of beets, red beans, cocoa powder, and red food coloring. I took a slight departure from the traditional red velvet cake flavor by adding a touch of almond extract, and that, my friends, is where the magic happened.

Yes, you are reading the ingredients list correctly: there are black beans in these brownies. You really have to taste the brownies to believe them. The beans add moisture and texture not to mention fiber and protein. These brownies have such a great fudgy texture because the cocoa powder and just a little espresso powder are the only dry ingredients (besides a bit of Truvia). For an extra jolt of chocolate flavor and about 15 more calories stir 1/4 cup dark chocolate covered cocoa nibs (such as Kopali Organics) into the batter just before pouring it into the pan. These brownies are even better the next day.

To heighten the toffee flavor, substitute toffee baking bits for half of the chopped almonds.

Many a copy of JOY has been sold on the strength of this recipe. One fan says her family is sure these are the cakes St. Peter gives little children at the Gates of Heaven, to get them over the first pangs of homesickness. The lemon glaze should be spread on warm cakes or Christmas cookies. It has a fine consistency for embedding decorative nuts and fruits.